Light up the season with brilliant color gifts for the holidays, 12 in all. Shall we dig in?
What sweeter stocking-stuffer or early-days-of-Hanukkah present can you give than hilarious crayons? Lil Doodlers melts down broken crayons and molds them into a dizzying array of witty new shapes, like these robots ($6.95, set of 9) or Lego blocks ($7.95, set of 9).
New Hampshire-based designer Timothy Liles reinvented the crayon as a chunky, wearable ring. He wholesales his crayons via timothyliles [at] gmail dot com.
Here’s a clever Crayola hack from Etsy user Queinteresante: Chemistry Crayon Labels ($18, set of 96). Each crayon sports the name and chemical symbol of a compound that matches that crayon’s shade. Art meets science = kind of brilliant on both counts.
Honestly, funny coloring books are the gift that keeps on giving to this blog — you could overflow several stockings with variations on this concept alone. I’ll limit myself to four more stand-outs, starting with a classic, A Coloring Book by Andy Warhol. Vintage copies don’t come cheap: as of this writing, used prices on Amazon started at $40 and climbed heaven-ward from there. But oh, how very delicious to unwrap this on Christmas morning!
At the cheaper end of the continuum (i.e., free) is E is for Electronics, an open-source coloring book on all things scientific with illustrations by Travis Pitts. Email pittsillustration [at] gmail dot com for details on its online release.
"A is for Ampère", from E is for Electronics coloring book, via Adafruit
This snowy baby is already sold out until January 2011, but place your order now so you’ll have something to look forward in the post-holidays slump. The Polar Bears Coloring Book ($6.99) comes complete with five shades of white crayons to keep your polar bears well-hidden in the snow.
A cousin in coloring-book snark, Johnny’s Startup Adventure Coloring Book ($20) allows you free vent of your inner mogul with scenes from one entrepreneur’s technicolor dreams of startup glory. This witty booklet includes a free 8-pack of COLOURLovers-branded crayons.
Round out the tiny-gift pile with these two zingers: the CMYK Mighty Wallet by Terrence Kelleman ($15) …
… and a pixel-reminiscent felt hot pad from Nepal ($19.50 each). Yes, really!
Or you could just top everyone else’s pile-o-holiday-gifts with a shiny new bike. There are two color possibilities: the CMYK Bike ($349 MSRP), in clean white with a pop of colors …
… and a classic cherry-red ride Pantone Bike (£790 or US $1260). Check out the full range of Pantone products at PantoneUNIVERSE.com.
Still stumped for ideas? Head on over to our sister site, MyDesignShop.com, for even more variety of color-themed goodies, like Kelvin: Colour Today ($75), a gorgeous compendium of recent design projects, organized lusciously by hue.
Happy hunting, shoppers! May you seek out color and find it in abundance.